Jules and I are here in San Isidro, Costa Rica after a long, long............. long hike in Chirripo! When we arrived in San Gerardo (at the base of the trail) we were told by some local guys that we could reach the top in 4 hours if we were fast or 6 if we were a little slower. Plus they told us that we didn{t even need reservations to hike it... so we set out the next morning with our day packs at 5 AM. Well... we didn{t know what we were getting into. First it took us about 45 minutes even to reach the beggining of the trail and probably an hour and a half to reach the entrance of Parque Nacional Chirripo! From there it was a steep and muddy (and did i mention steep) 4.5 hour hike to the hostel near the top and then another 2 hours to the top. We were pushing big time and never took more than a 10 minute break. We reached the summit by 1 and after 10 minutes at the top we booked it back down trying to do this thing in one day. We had figured that we could hike back down in half the time or a little slower but it took us 8 hours to get to the top and the trail was super muddy so it took us 6.5 hours to get back down..

. the last hour on the trail being in the dark (thank God we had a lamp and lots of batteries, which we almost left at the hotel). We had never been in so much pain in all of our lives with everything below our butts aching with pain (especially our feet). But that night after the 14.5 hour ordeal we sat down at the soda (little restaurant) and had the best meal of our lives, Gallo pinto (the famous tipico option of rice, beans, eggs, bananas, tortillas and salsa lizano!). Today we slept in big time and then went and spent a while at a local hot springs giving each other foot massages! Then we caught the bus down to San Isidro where we are now. Tomorrow weŽll catch the 6:30 bus to Puerto Jimenez and start our 3 day hike through the famous Parque Nacional Corcovado. It should be great.